October 12, 2011The Tribes: Ascend Closed Beta is currently scheduled to start on November 4, 2011.To ensure a spot in the beta, HIREZ is offering a 'VIP' package for $29.99 that will guarantee access. While this price does not include full access to all features in the game, it does feature a 30 day 'booster' that will increase leveling speed to unlock items in the game faster.

C-- wrote:Where is the quote that says that T:A is free and everything is achievable if you have the skill/experience?

It will all be free and achievable without paying, but the people that pay can get it sooner.

The key limiting factor won't likely be skill or experience, it'll be time.

For example, in a free to play game I played a while back, called Spiral Knights, you could get all the items/equipment without spending any money. But, you had to save up "Energy Points". You had to buy energy points with either real money, or in-game money.You got in game money buy killing enemies, completing dungeons, etc. But, the amount of in game money you'd need to get your maxed out equipment was kind of ridiculous. If you had the time, you could do it, but it would take a couple of months.

Alternatively, which I ended up doing, you could just spend $5/10/25/50 and just buy different amounts of the energy with real money. I was enjoying the game, so I had no problem buying $10 worth of energy to advance more quickly. If I hadn't, I'd have been stuck doing the same dungeons over and over hundreds of times to earn my way there. I don't have time for that.

So that's what these companies will bank on: your time. How much is your time worth to you?Same reason people buy World of Warcraft accounts and gold. Even though it's against the rules, technically, some people don't have the time or desire to spend the hours doing it the slow way; they want to go straight to the top and enjoy their game from there. I used to be against it, but with my now limited time due to my busy life style, I can see the usefulness.

You are completely correct Treshnell, hopefully the game will be engaging enough to hold players attention, and the core mechanics of the game make it worth spending money. While I'm very disappointed there will be no modding or scripting, I'm all for a game that will have continuing development, as long as it's interesting.

Anubis, you either have to pay for the starter pack, or hope you will be invited into the beta that starts November 4th. You can preload the beta now if you pay for the starter pack, and there are people that have found a way to play it now. I expect this will be patched out soon, or maybe they'll leave it in to get more attention.

If you plan on waiting, be sure to upload your dxdiag system specs on their application form.

Plas, if I pay for the shit, can I install the beta in 2 diff computers? Or can I keep the setup for as many time as I want? Because im going to buy a new pc in december, but this Tribes Gold 10$ shit is only till 4 Nov, right?

If you want to play, you need to pre-order the game and follow these instructions:

After pre-order, you should have the preloaded T:A game files that you can get with the Hi-Command updater/patcher.

Here's how:Start the game normally from Hi-Command and get to the broken login screenExit the gameCheck in your Windows user directory's "Documents\My Games\Tribes Ascend\TribesGame\Config\ " folder for a file named TribesEngine.iniOpen the file in a text editor and find the lines in the "URL" section that say "Map=TribesMainEntry.fmap " and "LocalMap=TribesMainEntry .fmap"Change the name of the file to one of the maps in "C:\Hi-Command\games\tribes alpha\TribesGame\CookedPC \Maps"there's a folder for each map, just pick a .fmap file (the TrCTF-XXXX.fmap ones seem to work)Change the line back in TribesEngine.ini to something like "Map=TrCTF-Drydock.fmap" and do the same for LocalMapRun the game again from Hi-Command

For a higher resolution: find "ResX" and "ResY" in the same file. Mine are set to ResX=1920 and ResY=1080

HOW TO CHANGE CLASS:

Step One: Press ~ (Console)

Step Two: Type﻿ "SetCharFamily Light_Pathfinder" without quotes.

Step Three: Enjoy new class

Heavy_Doombringer

Heavy_Juggernaught

Heavy_Brute

Heavy_Rook

Heavy_Marauder﻿

Medium_Scrambler

Medium_Technician

Medium_Soldier

Medium_Warder

Medium_Ranger

Medium_Raider

Medium_Engineer﻿

Light_Pathfinder

Light_Infiltrator

Light_Sentinel

Light_Wraith

Light_Jumper

Light_Architect﻿

that's it! now you can play T:A before the beta officially starts.

(note: you can find the "real" game start menu by changing the .fmap to MainEntry.fmap instead of TribesMainEntry.fmap, but none of the modes seem to work right now because the 'open' command is unsupported in this build)

in the game, there's a console accessible either by pressing ` (~) or [. the commands work for various things, and some are broken, but there's one that works that adds credits/money... called something like "GiveCredits 10000". running that command lets you buy vehicles.

Yea but let them do their thing until they release it. After that we can post complaints on their forums and maybe they will give a love. Because unfortunately the power is not in the hands of T1 veterans that played from 1999 but the potential suckers with lots of money in their pockets.